Real (non-EBT) Help for the Poor

Massachusetts legislators recently passed reforms to the Electronic Benefits Transfer Card (EBT) system in hopes of stamping out abuse. Unfortunately, the focus only tangentially addresses the issue of how to help the poor. The government merely exacerbated the problem by strengthening the control it has over spending decisions. EBT promotes the kind of nanny statism that enhances the dependency of the poor on government. To effectively help the poor in Massachusetts, the government can and should do the following:

Just give cash. If the government is going to make transfers to poor people, the form should simply be cash. Specialization and designation of government aid programs are wrought with inefficiency and waste. It further distances the decision making from the consumer. The most effective form of assistance is a cash payment. Empower the people to make choices for their families. They are in a position to know best what they need. Education reform. Perhaps the most effective method of elevating from the depths of poverty is through education. Government at the state level should be focused on programs that provide the most benefit to disadvantaged children. For example, the Neighborhood House Charter School has been highly effective. The government should promote these kinds of charter schools. School choice should also be an option, and parents be given direct assistance to send their children elsewhere if local schools are failing.

Reduce or eliminate the minimum wage. Though ostensibly created to boost income and help low income earners, the minimum wage actually creates a cap on employment. The negative effects most directly impact the poor – the unskilled and undereducated. A simple supply-demand chart demonstrates the adverse impact on jobs. The minimum wage does not raise income levels, but rather reduces the supply of low paying jobs – the bottom rung of the ladder people need to climb out of poverty.

Cut taxes and regulation on employment. To create more of something, it needs to be taxed less. By reducing the taxation on employment, more jobs will be created which will help the poor. Unemployment taxes and various fees and regulations are a drag on job creation. They should be reduced.

Promote economic growth. The logic is straightforward: a greater supply of jobs leads to higher income thus helping the poor, and jobs are created through economic growth. The greatest impact the government can have on economic growth is by reducing taxation and spending and regulation. Encourage companies to set up shop in Massachusetts by lowering the tax burden on income.

EBT abuse and reform has recently been a hot topic in Massachusetts, and the legislature is taking action to address the issue. However, poor people in need of real assistance are being done a disservice. Government should focus on real and substantial solutions.

Deval Patrick's Massachusetts Economic Scorecard

Is Massachusetts better off than it was four years ago? Since Deval Patrick took office in January 2007, over 100,000 jobs have been lost in the state as the unemployment rate nearly doubled from 4.6% to 8.8%. A lengthy list of clichés is applicable: You can’t argue with the tape, the scoreboard doesn’t lie, and you are what your record says you are. The employment figures are simply the tip of the iceberg on Patrick’s economic record. When contemplating keeping Patrick in his current position on November 2nd this simple scorecard should come in handy.

• Over 100,000 jobs have been lost as unemployment rose to 8.8%. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the beginning of 2007 employment in Massachusetts was 3,282,773. By the end of August 2008, it stood at 3,171,545 – a loss of 111,228 jobs. The unemployment rate rose from 4.6% to 8.8% (a 91% increase). For comparison, New Hampshire went from 3.4% to 5.7% (up 68%). Of course when the score is this bad, Patrick wants to distract with the nebulous concept of 25,000 jobs “saved”. It is an affront to rational thought and an argument made by someone trying to sucker the people from the truth. By that reasoning he saved 3.2mm jobs! The reality is that over 100,000 jobs have been lost with Patrick at the helm.
• Government spending has risen by $2.6 billion, over twice the rate of inflation. The fiscal year 2008 budget had the Massachusetts government spending $26.8 billion. The fiscal year 2011 budget has the number at $29.4 billion. This is an increase of 9.7%. During that same period, the consumer price index rose from 208.4 to 218.0 – an increase of 4.6%. Had Patrick kept spending in line with inflation, $1.4 billion would be saved. While Massachusetts families are tightening budgets to gird for tough economic times, Patrick increases spending twice as fast as the cost of living rises.
• The unfunded pension liability has grown almost 50%, to $20 billion. On January 1, 2007, the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission in their Commonwealth Actuarial Valuation Report pegged the unfunded actuarial liability at $13.3 billion. In the 2010 version, the number balloons to $20.0 billion. While the stock market dip will be blamed for this nearly 50% liability growth, it can realistically only have caused a small portion of it. Stocks generally declined in that time period by 20%, and bonds increased in value. The culprit is that it is easier to promise benefits than increase pay. In addition to actual budget spending increasing under Patrick, the total future bill has massively increased. Aside from current taxes owed, there is an implied forward tax rate, and the $20 billion is a massive future tax burden.
• Taxes have increased. Every dollar of government spending must come from a dollar of taxation. As spending has ramped up, so too have taxes. Property taxes have increased, though Patrick promised they would go down. Based on Department of Revenue data, total statewide property taxes in fiscal year 2008 were $5.3 billion. In fiscal year 2010, they were $5.7 billion. This is an increase of $400 million, or 7.3% in two years. The consumer price index is up 3.5% in that time period - less than half the pace of property tax. To add to the burden, the sales tax went up from 5% to 6.25%, an increase of 25%. This is a regressive tax raising the cost of living at the worst time, but claimed to be necessary to support the outsized increases in government spending. Never ask a barber if you need a haircut, and never ask Patrick if you need to pay more in taxes. He has a vacuum in your pocket.
• Healthcare costs are up. While Patrick inherited the current healthcare system, he is an unabashed fan and has exacerbated its massive cost increases. The cost to the state has gone up $2.2 billion. For fiscal year 2011, the office of the Secretary of Health and Human Services has a budget of $8.1 billion. The number for fiscal year 2008 was $5.9 billion, which means an increase of 37%. Massachusetts now has the highest cost for health insurance in the country, as well as the highest rate of cost inflation. Patrick embraced the incorrect assertion that the uninsured raise medical costs, when in actuality it is the mandates and government involvement in the market that drive prices ever higher.

The last four years have been the result of tax and spend and promise - the failed economic policies of a one-party monopoly on power. And the dismal economic scorecard reflects that. Flowery rhetoric is one thing, but the numbers do not lie. The economic record is what it is and the buck stops with Deval Patrick. As the scorecard clearly shows, the Massachusetts economy is worse off than it was four years ago.

Massachusetts is a Health-Reform Debacle

In an October 15th op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Governor Deval Patrick proclaimed that “Massachusetts is a Health-Reform Model.” The reality is that since its inception in 2006, the reform has been a debacle. Its most insidious characteristic could perhaps be that it is being touted as a model for the entire country. The Massachusetts healthcare program is actually the antithesis of economically sound and beneficial reform.

Patrick at least correctly described the problem with healthcare as one of cost. The solution, though, is not the plan implemented in Massachusetts. There are two paths government intervention in a market can take: it can structure a set of mandates that force prices to rise, or it can implement price controls which inevitably lead to shortages. The Massachusetts model achieves both.

Instead of giving consumers more choice and control, the Massachusetts plan shifts power to government. It imposes a set of mandates that have forced prices up for all. Massachusetts is not only the costliest state in the country for insurance, but also is experiencing the greatest price inflation. The high costs fall on both the people directly, as well as putting a crunch on state government. Governor Patrick self-congratulates a balanced budget, but also must acknowledge that rising healthcare costs crowd out other government spending. The plan has not completely annihilated the budget because it receives an outsize subsidy from the Federal government. Thus, the rest of the country is actually subsidizing healthcare in Massachusetts – if the model was expanded, that subsidy only can come in the form of higher taxes. In the meantime, the available supply of healthcare in Massachusetts is declining as waiting times increase. Higher costs, lower quality – this is the Massachusetts model.

Mitt Romney, who signed the program into law as Governor, infamously quipped in a Presidential debate, “I like mandates. The mandates work”. Unfortunately, mandates are counterintuitive to free market principles. Mandates create distortions that lead directly to higher costs for all - this is a logical and empirical precept. Romney believed the cause of high healthcare costs is the uninsured utilizing the system and that their expenditures were being spread to the insured. He claimed in 2006 that, “Every uninsured citizen in Massachusetts will soon have affordable health insurance and the costs of health care will be reduced.” The opposite actually ensued as insurance has become less affordable, though more subsidized, and costs have risen dramatically. The Massachusetts reform was based on the specious concept that the uninsured are driving up costs. This conclusion unfortunately directed attention away from the real underlying sources of outsized inflation in healthcare costs.

In a market, the distance between payer and consumer is directly proportional to the level of pricing inefficiency. The current system of insurance propagates a discrepancy between the people who receive the healthcare, and those who pay for it. The cost of a visit to an emergency room is not exorbitant because of the uninsured who visit, but rather because virtually no one who visits actually pays the bill directly. Add on the fact that billions of dollars are wasted each year on unnecessary procedures in an effort to stem litigation. The Massachusetts model does not address either issue, and thus is failing miserably.

It is possible, fortunately, to tackle these problems. The current distortion in the tax code must be fixed such that all healthcare expenditures are treated equally. Additionally, health savings account should be expanded to become the norm. Consumers should direct their own dollars. Healthcare needs to be reformed in a way that gives consumers vastly more control than they currently have. Tort reform must be enacted to not only directly reduce the cost of healthcare, but also to eliminate the wasteful spending that indirectly increases costs.

As costs are contained, healthcare becomes more affordable. And as prices drop, the ranks of the uninsured will follow. Those who then still cannot afford healthcare can be subsidized by the government. There is little logic in transforming the entire healthcare system into a government controlled program when only a small portion is in need of help. If anything, the government needs to vastly reduce its role, as it currently controls roughly half of all medical expenditures. This has only further exacerbated the problem.

There seems to be a consensus that the central problem with healthcare is cost. The divergence, though, comes from the root cause of the high prices and how to reduce them. Prices are out of control because approximately 80% of costs are paid by someone other than the actual consumer, as well as a tort system that encourages wasteful spending. The Massachusetts reform addresses neither issue, and instead gives more control to the government. The results are as expected – higher costs and lower quality. Massachusetts is a health-reform debacle that provides ample evidence of a failed experiment and a blueprint of what not to do for the rest of the country.

Cash for Clunkers Should be Heaped

Demand has been so high for the Cash for Clunkers program that Congress increased funding from the initial $1 billion. The basics of the program are simple (and borrowed from the British “Cash for Bangers” – not nearly as catchy). The government will cut you a check for $3,500-$4,500 for turning in your gas guzzling clunker and buying a new, fuel-efficient car. There are certain parameters, of course. The clunker must be scrapped, and the amount paid depends on the gain in fuel efficiency.

Because the clunker is junked, the government is essentially handing out a check. As in, it is a four thousand dollar payment in exchange for purchasing a new car, and eliminating an old one. As the precept goes, every dollar of government spending must be paid for with a dollar of taxes. Thus, the taxpayer is shelling out a few billion dollars to get old cars off the road. Yes, some might posit that there is an ancillary Keynesian stimulation benefit – giving people money to spur the purchase of new cars (for the simple counter, see the precept two sentences prior).

Should the taxpayer be in the business of paying money to get old cars off the road? The approximate math of the program stacks up as follows. The $1 billion covers the purchase of 250,000 clunkers. The average car is driven about 15 thousand miles per year. That totals just less than 4 billion total miles driven. Assume the average fuel economy of the clunkers was 15 miles per gallon, and the average increase was 10 miles per gallon (the level required for the maximum government handout). The new cars, in aggregate, will use 100 million less gallons of gas. As a not so insignificant side note, the cost savings to the subsidized owners of the new cars would be roughly $300 million per year.

The reduced gasoline consumption is significant. That translates to roughly two billion less pounds of carbon dioxide production. An acre of trees consumes about 10,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year (this varies widely, depending on the type of tree and the density – but the approximation is what counts here). Thus 200 thousand acres of trees would equate to the amount of gasoline usage eliminated. The cost to plant an acre of trees varies widely as well, though for this analysis $1,000 per acre will be used. It would then cost about $200 million to plant the equivalent trees. The $1 billion spent to buy the 250,000 clunkers would be enough to plant five times as many trees as would be required to cover the difference in carbon dioxide emissions. Yes, enough to cover twice the total CO2 produced by the clunkers in the first place.

Of course, the issue goes well beyond the simplified math. Average fuel economy has been steadily increasing over the years. Trading up from clunker to new car is part of the natural progression. If the government wanted to facilitate the process, there is an economically sound way to do it: reduce the burden of government spending and taxation. The economy will grow, jobs will be created, and people will have more money with which to buy new, more fuel efficient vehicles.

Who Should Pay for Betty Beauchaine's Hot Dog? (Have your cake and eat it Part II)

A cover article in the July 28th Wall Street Journal describes the efforts of healthcare professionals to reduce repeat visits by patients (“Cutting Repeat Hospital Trips – Simple Idea, Hard to Pull Off”). The first paragraph ends with the question, “Can hospital persuade discharged patients such as Betty Beauchaine to pass up a Fourth of July hot dog?”

The article proceeds to describe Betty as a 75-year old who suffers from heart failure. She went to the table at a picnic and said “I’m going to have a hot dog. If I’m dead in the morning, I’ll never know.”

Good for Betty! As great-grandmother, she has lived a lifetime and earned the right to make those kinds of decisions. From her statement, it is clear she is fluent in the risks and rewards of her behavior. She wants to eat the hot dog, and knows that it can kill her to do so.

But the Federal Government wants to take that decision away from her. Actually, it has been trying to do that for quite some time. Medicare has already socialized healthcare to a substantial degree. Thus, the outcomes between the delicious rewards of a July 4th hot dog and the ultimate risk of death generally fall on society to pay for. If Betty makes it through the night, but needs to head to the hospital as a result of the nitrate stick she consumed, everyone pays.

Should hot dog eating be banned? Of course not. Should healthcare be socialized? Of course not. Americans should be free to make decisions for themselves and receive both the benefits and suffer the potential consequences.

Your Implied Tax Rate Is...

The wool is being pulled over the eyes of the American people. The President has revealed a budget with $3.5 trillion in spending and a $1.2 trillion deficit. The wool is in the latter number, and the eyes are really our collective pockets. Every dollar the government spends must eventually be paid for with a dollar of taxes. At some future point in time, the deficit must be made whole. But since the money is not being taken out of the peoples’ pockets today, outrage over the obscene level of spending is muted.

Unfortunately, most people are not computing their implied tax rate. As in, if instead of deficit spending, taxes were raised to cover the difference, tax rates would be much higher than they currently are. Estimated receipts for 2010 are $2.4 trillion, with $1.2 trillion of that coming from income taxes (both individual and corporate). If the entire budget deficit were covered by an increase in income taxes, rates would have to double. Double. Double? Double! Repeat: Double!

For reference, $940 billion of the remaining $1.2 trillion in receipts comes from social security and other payroll taxes – thus, it is assumed for purposes of calculating the implied tax rate that the increase is covered by income taxes.

If taxpayers understood that their implied tax rate is double in order to cover the budget deficit, would it still be tolerated? Of course, if actual income tax rates were doubled, would income tax receipts double? Both questions are a few notches beyond rhetorical.

The question remains on how to adjust the implied tax rate given that the taxes will be paid in the future. Is the number higher because of the interest cost on the debt, or should it be lowered due to the massive inflation that will no doubt be generated by the absurd government spending and printing of money?

Maybe we will all feel better after seeing our government healthcare provider. Wait – is that cost included in our implied tax rate?

Have Your Cake, Eat it Too, Pay Tax on Cake, See Government Doctor

A proposal is being floated to tax sugary drinks such as soda and Gatorade. Coincidentally, a proposal is being floated to socialize the healthcare industry. The two are inextricably linked. If everyone is paying for everyone else’s healthcare, unquestionably behavior linked to health should be dictated by everyone.

As the precept goes, when something is taxed, there is less of it. Thus, by taxing the consumption of sugary drinks, there will be less consumed. A better diet will no doubt lead to better health, and thus the collective costs to society will be lowered. The same, of course, goes for things like cigarettes. If the taxpayer is on the hook for treating lung cancer, then it is in the taxpayer’s interest to minimize smoking. It should not end there, though. Really any behavior that poses a risk to health should be taxed, or banned altogether.

It must be so. Another precept is that price ceilings lead to shortages. As in, the myth being propagated that the government can simply control healthcare prices is just that. There is no messianic hand wave that will magically keep costs under control when healthcare is “free” to all. Thus, the only way to keep the cost of socialized healthcare even remotely palatable is to massively regulate behavior.

Everyone must be coerced to live a healthier lifestyle. No activities with injury potential can be tolerated, and should be banned. Eating right and regular exercise will be a requirement. People must be eating their five servings of fruits and vegetables, taking their vitamins, and getting plenty of cardiovascular workouts. Urine samples can be used to ensure the proper consumption of essential nutrients. The government will regularly screen blood samples of the population to monitor important indicators of health. A workout database can be constructed to keep everyone on a regimen. People will log their routines via a government web site. Better yet, exercise equipment – whether at a gym or in the home – can be fitted with a wireless device to automatically send data to the centralized system. Government inspectors can regularly make visits to properly calibrate the meters. We will need full genetic screening of the population as well. The government must know each individual’s susceptibility to various ailments, and enforce proper preventative measures.

Or…We can choose to live in a free society where people make their own decisions, and also assume responsibility for the consequences of their actions.